VN Ren'Py Summer's Gone [S1 Steam + DLC] [Oceanlab]

[Fortuna ღ]

Ya, I am in a spot where I don't really care about Summer - I've never been a big fan of stories that try to put the MC in a relationship in "the past" leading into the story and then re-introduce them later in emotionally impactful ways and the reason is two fold -

1.) There's no guarantee the player is going to find the girl attractive, potentially making the impact of her return meaningless
2.) There's no guarantee the player is going to form any kind of emotional attachment to that character based on just the backstory.

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And just as you said, because of the MC's backstory, he'd be written to have this huge emotional reaction to such an event that the narrative would likely spend a lot of time on possibly affecting relationships that the player had begun working on, and the whole time I'd be waiting just to get through it so I could get back to the story I'd actually become invested in with other present-day characters.

In all honesty, Oceans is a much better writer than Drifty. Drifty's writing is not bad by any means, but they fell into many stereotypical problems when it comes to writing the romance stories for Leap of Faith. They used many common tropes and while it gave way to a wholesome story, the writing is by no means anything special. Besides, Oceans is already using a much better formula for this. Subtly adding things here and there instead of blatantly telling us or showing us something like what happened in Leap of Faith. Also, Oceans plans to have this AVN be up to 30 chapters in length. I think he'd have more time to work on providing a meaningful impact to both us and the characters within this AVN. Drifty only plans on providing 8 chapters. This isn't an attack on him, I'm just pointing out that Ocean has more time to provide us something with more substance and weight than Drifty. He only had 8 chapters to work with, while Oceans has more than 3x that amount.

To put it bluntly, Oceans is the best writer on this site. The only other writers I've seen that can compare are DPC and EvaKiss(the developers for Our Red String and Being a DIK). I think Ocean can and will do a much better job in revealing the character of Summer when that time comes, as opposed to what Drifty did with Stephanie. I also think he'll do a much better job when it comes to getting the audience to form some level of attachment towards Summer than you think. I mean, it's only been 3.5 chapters and everyone's already in love with one LI or another. I just think everyone should ready themselves for when she inevitably does make her return.

 

[Razrback16]

if she comes back hopefully by then we will be in a relationship with bella and hearing bella voice might snap us out of it

if we lose our minds

but that is complete wishful thinking by me

truthfully my brother we don't know what's going to happen but something tells me it's going to be bad if it happens

Ya I think it'll come down a lot to how much freedom the dev gives us in the story. That was the good thing with how it was handled in LoF - there were a number of choices you could make to decide how to respond to the situation so that nothing was really forced very heavily on the player outside of just learning 'what happened' because you could just essentially choose that you were over it so that you could move on.

I would bet it won't happen soon if it does - probably further down the road once the player has had time to settle in with a LI or maybe even several that he's 'dating' and then the Summer bomb would be dropped as a cliffhanger one episode - "Oh hey, MC, have you and Bella (or Mila or whoever the player is with) met the new girl in Math class? Ya, she's nice, her name is Summer." Insert dramatic sound: Duh, Duh, DUH.... episode ends with MC walking through the classroom door with his gf and seeing her face as she's sitting at one of the desks.
Choices: "Hold Bella's hand as you approach Summer" "Don't hold Bella's hand as you approach Summer" "Run from room" "Urgently embrace Summer"
<end of episode> Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It'll just come down to how much freedom of choice we are granted.

 

[Cee27]

That's a pretty good point, he wants to be normal again and but this whole thing about summer is really fucking him up for reasons unknown to us yet.


But tbh it really don't work like that, closure might be attained for a simple break up and whatnot but for psychological traumas like these, I'm no psychologist but I'm pretty sure his broken bits are going to get worse as soon as summer pops back into his life unannounced when he's started to get his shit together.

Been through a psychological trauma too, I was only in denial at best for 3 years before I got the closure I surely needed. So I can relate really well with the MC. Ofcourse there'll be drawbacks but if he really developed it will help him attain peace of mind.

 

[Razrback16]

In all honesty, Oceans is a much better writer than Drifty. Drifty's writing is not bad by any means, but they fell into many stereotypical problems when it comes to writing the romance stories for Leap of Faith. They used many common tropes and while it gave way to a wholesome story, the writing is by no means anything special. Besides, Oceans is already using a much better formula for this. Subtly adding things here and there instead of blatantly telling us or showing us something like what happened in Leap of Faith. Also, Oceans plans to have this AVN be up to 30 chapters in length. I think he'd have more time to work on providing a meaningful impact to both us and the characters within this AVN. Drifty only plans on providing 8 chapters. This isn't an attack on him, I'm just pointing out that Ocean has more time to provide us something with more substance and weight than Drifty. He only had 8 chapters to work with, while Oceans has more than 3x that amount.

To put it bluntly, Oceans is the best writer on this site. The only other writers I've seen that can compare are DPC and EvaKiss(the developers for Our Red String and Being a DIK). I think Ocean can and will do a much better job in revealing the character of Summer when that time comes, as opposed to what Drifty did with Stephanie. I also think he'll do a much better job when it comes to getting the audience to form some level of attachment towards Summer than you think. I mean, it's only been 3.5 chapters and everyone's already in love with one LI or another. I just think everyone should ready themselves for when she inevitably does make her return.

I agree on most things, here - LoF is mediocre in terms of its writing. I'm still half expecting that surfer girl from Being A DIK to make a return (MC's first girlfriend) also so we'll see how that's handled if DPC goes that route.

Given that we only have 3.5 chapters to go on with this game so far, I'm HOPEFUL that Ocean does turn out to be a significantly better writer and handles this well - he's certainly done a great job with the relationships up to this point. Like you, I fully expect it to happen, and have from the beginning. As I mentioned in my last post, I think the response from the players at large will mainly come down to choices - if the player is given a number of ways to respond to whatever the scenario is that the dev introduces which allows them to very fluidly analyze the situation and respond in a relatively natural way for them, it'll go fine. If it's shoved down the player's throat in a way they don't like, or very negatively affects existing relationships they've worked on to that point, it may not go fine. TBD.

 

[crabsinthekitchen]

Ya I think it'll come down a lot to how much freedom the dev gives us in the story. That was the good thing with how it was handled in LoF - there were a number of choices you could make to decide how to respond to the situation so that nothing was really forced very heavily on the player outside of just learning 'what happened' because you could just essentially choose that you were over it so that you could move on.

I would bet it won't happen soon if it does - probably further down the road once the player has had time to settle in with a LI or maybe even several that he's 'dating' and then the Summer bomb would be dropped as a cliffhanger one episode - "Oh hey, MC, have you and Bella (or Mila or whoever the player is with) met the new girl in Math class? Ya, she's nice, her name is Summer." Insert dramatic sound: Duh, Duh, DUH.... episode ends with MC walking through the classroom door with his gf and seeing her face as she's sitting at one of the desks.
Choices: "Hold Bella's hand as you approach Summer" "Don't hold Bella's hand as you approach Summer" "Run from room" "Urgently embrace Summer"
<end of episode> Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It'll just come down to how much freedom of choice we are granted.

Running away is the only option. If MC reacts like a normal person then she returned too late

 

[Cee27]

Ya, I am in a spot where I don't really care about Summer - I've never been a big fan of stories that try to put the MC in a relationship in "the past" leading into the story and then re-introduce them later in emotionally impactful ways and the reason is two fold -

1.) There's no guarantee the player is going to find the girl attractive, potentially making the impact of her return meaningless
2.) There's no guarantee the player is going to form any kind of emotional attachment to that character based on just the backstory.

Spoiler

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And just as you said, because of the MC's backstory, he'd be written to have this huge emotional reaction to such an event that the narrative would likely spend a lot of time on possibly affecting relationships that the player had begun working on, and the whole time I'd be waiting just to get through it so I could get back to the story I'd actually become invested in with other present-day characters.

It's not about that tho, you can simply choose not to take her back if you wanted to, but the whole point of the story is about Summer. It would be incomplete without the confrontation part. Remember it's an AVN which you are free to refuse to choose her. It's a critical part of the development of the mc if that's the path you're on. Otherwise all efforts would be wasted with him being broken. You can't fix something without going through it all the way. That's a life lesson that I learned in the hardest way possible.

 

[Cee27]

In all honesty, Oceans is a much better writer than Drifty. Drifty's writing is not bad by any means, but they fell into many stereotypical problems when it comes to writing the romance stories for Leap of Faith. They used many common tropes and while it gave way to a wholesome story, the writing is by no means anything special. Besides, Oceans is already using a much better formula for this. Subtly adding things here and there instead of blatantly telling us or showing us something like what happened in Leap of Faith. Also, Oceans plans to have this AVN be up to 30 chapters in length. I think he'd have more time to work on providing a meaningful impact to both us and the characters within this AVN. Drifty only plans on providing 8 chapters. This isn't an attack on him, I'm just pointing out that Ocean has more time to provide us something with more substance and weight than Drifty. He only had 8 chapters to work with, while Oceans has more than 3x that amount.

To put it bluntly, Oceans is the best writer on this site. The only other writers I've seen that can compare are DPC and EvaKiss(the developers for Our Red String and Being a DIK). I think Ocean can and will do a much better job in revealing the character of Summer when that time comes, as opposed to what Drifty did with Stephanie. I also think he'll do a much better job when it comes to getting the audience to form some level of attachment towards Summer than you think. I mean, it's only been 3.5 chapters and everyone's already in love with one LI or another. I just think everyone should ready themselves for when she inevitably does make her return.

True that

 

[Cee27]

Damn, never been this enthusiastic in a thread before ever since BaDIK and Acting Lessons. This is certainly a top 3 AVN in my collection. Might be able to take the cake from Acting Lessons too, if it continues like this.

 

[Razrback16]

It's not about that tho, you can simply choose not to take her back if you wanted to, but the whole point of the story is about Summer. It would be incomplete without the confrontation part. Remember it's an AVN which you are free to refuse to choose her. It's a critical part of the development of the mc if that's the path you're on. Otherwise all efforts would be wasted with him being broken. You can't fix something without going through it all the way. That's a life lesson that I learned in the hardest way possible.

Well, like you noted, as long as we have the option to 'not take her back' and control MC's reactions at least to the degree that we can prevent any existing relationships from getting nuked, etc., that's what I'm saying is important with choices - because those players who don't really develop any investment in Summer will just want to progress the story with the characters they actually have become invested in.

 

[Warscared]

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dude she was never re introduced in the game she was there from the start! she was missing from the MC`s life yes, but never from the game since her "re introduction" was on even odd´s with all the other girls! if anything for late introduction you got that poor Lexxi´s friends the nymphomaniac!

Ya I think it'll come down a lot to how much freedom the dev gives us in the story. That was the good thing with how it was handled in LoF - there were a number of choices you could make to decide how to respond to the situation so that nothing was really forced very heavily on the player outside of just learning 'what happened' because you could just essentially choose that you were over it so that you could move on.

I would bet it won't happen soon if it does - probably further down the road once the player has had time to settle in with a LI or maybe even several that he's 'dating' and then the Summer bomb would be dropped as a cliffhanger one episode - "Oh hey, MC, have you and Bella (or Mila or whoever the player is with) met the new girl in Math class? Ya, she's nice, her name is Summer." Insert dramatic sound: Duh, Duh, DUH.... episode ends with MC walking through the classroom door with his gf and seeing her face as she's sitting at one of the desks.
Choices: "Hold Bella's hand as you approach Summer" "Don't hold Bella's hand as you approach Summer" "Run from room" "Urgently embrace Summer"
<end of episode> Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It'll just come down to how much freedom of choice we are granted.

you forgot the most believable scenario

MC: YOU!
Summer: YOU
dumb looking at each other for 5 minutes
drops everything and walks over to her
MC *crying* they told me you where dead! i would have looked for you otherwise! *crying*
Summer: *crying and scared* why? so you could finish the job? stay away!
MC. what?
Summer: i still carry the scars of our last time!
MC: i loved you!
Summer: if thats what you call love i am afraid of what might happen to those you hate!
Summer: you are an aggressive abusive cunt that reacts violently to being told no!
MC: but...but
Summer: don`t just don`t! *crying*
MC: i would never hurt you, you know that! right?
Summer: what you say and what you do are total opposites!
MC: i still have nightmares about our last time together!
Summer: so do i! i told you to stop, it was hurting and you only went further! *rage in her voice*
MC: what do you mean? i do not remember that!
Summer: *crying in rage* and i can never forget it!
MC: i am so sorry i tried to talk to you but they told me you where dead!
MC: my heart broke the last time i saw you in that hospital bed after...after... OMFG!
Summer: the incident... that is how you see it?
MC: it can not be... i am not that person!
Summer: yes... you are not the person i assumed you where, but you lie well!
*summer runs away crying and in panic*
MC: what have i done? i can... i can remember it all
Bella: are you getting a hard on?
Bella: finallyyyy... i was despairing!
MC: *roars in rage*
MC goes on a murderous rage and kills Bella NAMI and Mila before being subdued by Ayusha and Sasha

and 20 years later we got a new game called revenge for my sister as the MC hunts down the asshole that murdered her at a school setting and we go through all this shit of disconnected again until the MC realizes he was the murderous cunt ... can not believe what he did and... 20 years later we play a 60 year old MC trying to unravel what happened in his past that got his wife and kids removed from him when he was trying to hunt down the monster that killed his sister and fucked him over until he is confronted with the truth again and that`s the end of chapter 4 of the Zane world!

and that`s the end of the story! that`s how i see it! i mean on the dark path when you never rebuild yourself and assumed your responsibility into the integration of your Jungian Shadow!

Damn, never been this enthusiastic in a thread before ever since BaDIK and Acting Lessons. This is certainly a top 3 AVN in my collection. Might be able to take the cake from Acting Lessons too, if it continues like this.

do not mention AL to me gnat, i was there when it all happened... redheads, damm redheads!

 

[D3xzalias]

In all honesty, Oceans is a much better writer than Drifty. Drifty's writing is not bad by any means, but they fell into many stereotypical problems when it comes to writing the romance stories for Leap of Faith. They used many common tropes and while it gave way to a wholesome story, the writing is by no means anything special. Besides, Oceans is already using a much better formula for this. Subtly adding things here and there instead of blatantly telling us or showing us something like what happened in Leap of Faith. Also, Oceans plans to have this AVN be up to 30 chapters in length. I think he'd have more time to work on providing a meaningful impact to both us and the characters within this AVN. Drifty only plans on providing 8 chapters. This isn't an attack on him, I'm just pointing out that Ocean has more time to provide us something with more substance and weight than Drifty. He only had 8 chapters to work with, while Oceans has more than 3x that amount.

To put it bluntly, Oceans is the best writer on this site. The only other writers I've seen that can compare are DPC and EvaKiss(the developers for Our Red String and Being a DIK). I think Ocean can and will do a much better job in revealing the character of Summer when that time comes, as opposed to what Drifty did with Stephanie. I also think he'll do a much better job when it comes to getting the audience to form some level of attachment towards Summer than you think. I mean, it's only been 3.5 chapters and everyone's already in love with one LI or another. I just think everyone should ready themselves for when she inevitably does make her return.

Imo Ocean has the best writing for portraying the opposite gender. And his dialogue writing for multiple people in a conversation is also very excellent. While some other writers write like they are 2 opposite typewriters operated by monkey's in a conversation
You can clearly see with other games that some people take inspiration from some people that have horrible writing of the opposite gender.

Luckily Ocean doesn't have that problem But Ocean's writing also has some problems. Because he is not a native speaker of the english language. But i can't fault him for that.

For Example
The Melody of your voice changed. Instead of saying: The tone of your voice changed

And that are just small things So yes i agree with you Oceans if by far the best writer here

 

[Dragon59]

View attachment 1417330

Either that's a teaser for new girl or the table-top session.

Might have been a definite message if it had been the head of a Troll rather than an Orc.

 

[lodegan]

Never played this game, should I wait until chap1 is reworked or just dive in rn?

 

[`Ray`]

Never played this game, should I wait until chap1 is reworked or just dive in rn?

My Advice....

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This Game is Fantastic and a soon-to-be Masterpiece. Ch4 will take a lot of time (5-7 months I guess) and will include the remaining reworked parts of Ch1.

 

[Razrback16]

Ch4 will take a lot of time (5-7 months I guess) and will include the remaining reworked parts of Ch1.

Did Ocean say this somewhere? I'm a relative newcomer to the thread, so just curious - very possible I've missed important bits like this. Depressing if it's that long of a wait. And do you know if he's changing story elements, or is it just like remastering some renders maybe he wasn't pleased with the first time around?

I'd second your advice, too - by all means, new folks jump right in. Tons of fun, game will currently give ~6-9 hours of entertainment.

I've done two runs so far but will hold off on playing again until Ch 4 and may just go ahead and re-play it from the beginning if it'll include re-worked areas.

 

[TheProfx]

Summer's Gone - Brazilian Portuguese Translation:
Summer's Gone - Brazilian Portuguese translation

 

[`Ray`]

Did Ocean say this somewhere? I'm a relative newcomer to the thread, so just curious - very possible I've missed important bits like this. Depressing if it's that long of a wait.

The reason I say that new updates will take a lot of time (5-7 months, just a guess) is because: -

- Right Now, Ocean is working on two VN's, Where it all Began (WIAB) and Summer's Gone (SG). Both are in-development. The Last WIAB update was on 2020-06-13 (15 months ago). He has to update and create content for Both games.

- His hardware, which I guess you already know about. Rn, Ocean has grown a lot but his Hardware has a long way to go...

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- A little more info Here.

And do you know if he's changing story elements, or is it just like remastering some renders maybe he wasn't pleased with the first time around?

It is the latter. AFAIK He will only rework the first chapter, which fortunately is not that big and we can see some of the reworked parts in Ch1.

Info about rework Here.

 

[_A.QH_]

It is the latter. AFAIK He will only rework the first chapter, which fortunately is not that big and we can see some of the reworked parts in Ch1.

He will rework chapter 2 as well, but just a small part every update, new content will still be the main priority. The reason why he wants to replace all the bad renders is because the game will be released on Steam after chapter 5. And he wants to leave a good impression on his new Steam customers

 

[CranberryJuice26]

Never played this game, should I wait until chap1 is reworked or just dive in rn?

You should just dive in, chapter 1 rework is just visuals, there's no story differences.

The rework will be finished when Chapter 5 releases.

 

[JETracktor]

You should just dive in, chapter 1 rework is just visuals, there's no story differences.

The rework will be finished when Chapter 5 releases.

Actually there is some differences in reworked part of chapter 1. Ocean removed most of the Darth Cyrus subplot, making the story a little different. I believe he said once that whole "dark" part not needed anymore.